Until recently the taxi cab business in virtually every city in the country functioned like a medieval guild. And as Adam Smith might have predicted, we consumers are worse off for it. But for me at least, things have changed.

Every year I celebrate Earth Day with tips and ideas on how readers can expand their carbon footprint. Now, below, you’ll find the newest, top ten ways I recommend to expand your carbon footprint on October 29th, 2013 Anno Domini, to celebrate Count on Coal Day.

"What matters?" It's a question Charles Krauthammer, psychiatrist-turned-Pulitzer-winning columnist, asks in the first sentence of his new book, a memoir-ish collection. The book is called "Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics." He explains how the working title for the book had originally been "There's More to Life than Politics" and was going to include just about everything but politics. Naturally, though, a man who "left a life in medicine for a life in journalism devoted mostly to politics" couldn't disengage.

Mr. McKibben had been in a cozy, if not profitable, journey with Mr. Gore – fighting the evil fossil fuel mountain of cash and its presumed hell-bent destruction of Planet Earth. However, it didn’t take Mr. Bill very long to conveniently see the light (he probably flipped a fossil-fuel-powered switch), revealing the oil-funded opportunity for riches.

Those attending the Family Research Council’s most recent Values Voter Summit heard a lot about religious liberty -- and with good reason. In ways both large and small, that cornerstone of freedom has found itself under attack at home and abroad. All Americans should be concerned about its well-being.

Healthcare, education, financial services. . . What aspect of daily life can the Fed’s mess with next? Kyle Olson, President of EAG News, joined the program to talk about the Federal Government’s most recent attempts to intrude on the education system. . . Oh, and Ezra Klein is still an idiot.

On Monday, at the Rose Garden, as the President was endlessly talking about his signature program, Obamacare, a young woman standing behind him nearly fainted. The victim of the long winded President, Karmel Allison, has diabetes and is 20 weeks pregnant.

Of course, President Obama said none of this would happen. Remember? But everything has changed. And unless the system gets fixed by January 1, a lot of folks are going to be very angry as they’re left out in the cold.

Fri, Oct 25, 2013

That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

Thanks to Yahoo Finance, we now know why the default color for an i-phone is white. . . Apparently, Apple’s problem (who knew the world’s most profitable company had a problem?) is that they’re run by a bunch of “old white guys”.

Why does the White House need a private-sector "tech surge" to repair its wretched Obamacare website failures? Weren't all of the president's myriad IT czars and their underlings supposed to ensure that taxpayers got the most effective, innovative, cutting-edge and secure technology for their money?

The media elites glowed as they reported a judge had forced New Jersey to become the 14th state to honor and celebrate the "gay marriage" concept. When homosexuals marry in Hoboken, the gay left will be -- should be -- thanking Hollywood.

Earlier this week, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski tried to call the
HealthCare.gov helpline and got an operator. That's right: an operator!
The call went through! MSNBC, the unofficial AV department of the
Democratic Party, had a scoop.

Thank goodness they caught this madman. There is no telling where free speech like that could lead.
Truth? Justice? The American Way? Those are just gateway drugs to the ultimate crime of…gasp…free markets.

Many reporters caught up in the bizarre world of official Washington have written extensively on political tactics and implications of the so-called government shutdown and disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov.

The latest opinion polls show that the GOP has suffered a huge drop in its approval ratings, even among self-identified Republicans. In the wake of the government shutdown, only 28 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the party, and Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to view their own party negatively, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Last Monday from the Rose Garden, Obama lauded his own legacy legislation for providing Americans health insurance at a cost about the "equivalent of your cellphone bill or your cable bill – and that's a good deal." The cost of cable and cell service must be exorbitant at the White House.

The best part about watching the implosion of the Obamacare implementation is knowing that thing are only going to get worse moving forward. Dr. Larry Kawa joined the program to discuss his ongoing lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the arbitrary implementation of the law.

While we watch the S.S. Obamacare sink beneath the waves, and while we watch the White House explain why its signature legislative "achievement" is not the titanic disaster we all knew it would be, I have some advice for my fellow Republicans.

I am more than a little irritated that the Congressional Republicans have allowed the nation's attention to be switched from Senator Ted Cruz and the House Cruzettes back to the astonishing incompetence of the Administration of President Barack Obama.

One of the reasons for being glad to be as old as I am is that I may be spared living to see a race war in America. Race wars are often wars in which nobody wins and everybody ends up much worse off than they were before.

That the mainstream media is biased against Republicans is news only to those who’ve been living in bomb shelters since the 1950s and the Georgetown/Manhattan/Hollywood cocktail set. The former is a fiction, the later only knows those who stray from the mental plantation of liberalism as a fiction.

Add another actor to the list. Chris Noth, currently starring in "The Good Wife," played Detective Mike Logan on "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," and "Mr. Big" on "Sex and the City." Noth has now outed himself -- as yet another liberal.

Sometimes I am just plain amazed at how corporations, various industries and certainly political parties and their numerous affiliate groups prefer to cry in their coffee, curse the darkness and cede public opinion when it is being manipulated against them.

As a black American who lived through the Civil Rights movement, I would never romanticize America’s past. But there was indeed a time when the overwhelming majority of American children were born to married parents, the divorce rate was very low, and men generally did what it took to provide for their families. Those days are quickly slipping away from us, and unless we make radical changes in our culture, those days may be gone forever. But it is not in the grave yet!

The utter disaster of the Obamacare rollout is now a matter of fact. Even President Barack Obama's Monday morning attempt at damage control in the Rose Garden was a disaster. Behind him stood a score or more of supporters all drawn from points around the country, all apparently in need of Obamacare.

In ending the rancorous impasse that led to the shutdown of much of the federal government, Democrats and Republicans agreed they need to sit down together and address the budget to avoid a repeat of the debacle next year.

Saudi Officials said "Relations with the US have been deteriorating for a while, as Saudi feels that the U.S. is growing closer with Iran and the U.S. also failed to support Saudi during the Bahrain uprising."

If one thing has become apparent in the Obama Admin, it’s that they love giving special treatment to their friends. Nick Sorrentino, from AgainstCronyCapitalism.org, joined the program to talk about the growing cronyism between Washington DC and Wall Street.

According to the same “brilliant” economic minds that brought us the 2009 Stimulus, Obamacare, and “fair share” tax increases on the middle class, the [partial] government shutdown will end up costing 120,000 private sector jobs. Who’d have thought closing down a DC memorial to WWII vets could cause so much economic havoc?

Abound Solar, the solar panel manufacturing company famous for going bankrupt last year after receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed loans, is making headlines again: according to recent media reports, the price tag on the clean up of the company's "unknown hazardous waste" is as high as $3.7 million.

Alan Meltzer is probably the greatest living disciple of Milton Friedman in relation to Friedman’s views of monetary policy. Meltzer is the monetarist par excellence, and author of the definitive series of volumes on the history of the Fed.

Now that we’ve had just a few weeks of the mess that is Obamacare, it brings home how grossly unfair it is for the political class to impose it on the rest of us and not have to abide by it (for as long as it lasts). It may yet collapse on its own weight.

Wed, Oct 23, 2013

Mikey Weinstein heads up an outfit called Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which might be shortened to Murfs. These atheizers are not to be confused with those cuddly Smurfs. The little blue cartoon character Smurfs all wear Phrygian caps—a symbol of freedom. No, Murfs take it on themselves to smother religious freedom.

President Obama's election was supposed to usher in an era of racial unity greater than any Americans had previously experienced. By making the historic move to place the first black president in the White House, Americans signified that they were ready to move beyond the racial conflicts of the past and move forward, arm-in-arm.

If, while channel surfing mid morning, you stumble upon someone flanked by happy “customers,” hawking a “good product,” and reciting a 1-800 number, chances are it’s an infomercial for the latest magical kitchen blender.

Reputations and careers are waiting to be made with a scandal as enormous as the Obamacare fail. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will get their chances tomorrow and next Wednesday as first the contractors who delivered the failed Obamacare websites troop to the Hill tomorrow, and then Kathleen Sebelius arrives next Wednesday.

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, the federal government’s procurement process was long beset by gross corruption and overspending. During the mid-1980s, investigations from watchdog groups such as the Project on Government Oversight (then called the "Project on Military Procurement") uncovered just how bad Washington’s spendthrift culture had become.

Bob Costas is one of the premier sportscasters and a very smart guy, so it was somewhat surprising to see him join the chorus of those decrying the fact that the owner of the Washington Redskins is resisting the pressures to change the name of his football team.

Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, a Philadelphia orthopedic surgeon, has a timely reminder for everyone encountering the federal health care exchange meltdown: "If you think signing up for Obamacare is a nightmare, ask your doctor how the EMR mandate is going."

What would you think of a person who earned $24,000 a year but spent $35,000? Suppose on top of that, he was already $170,000 in debt. You'd tell him to get his act together -- stop spending so much or he'd destroy his family, impoverish his kids and wreck their future. Of course, no individual could live so irresponsibly for long.

As I've documented in the past, many leftist teachers teach our youngsters to hate our country. For example, University of Hawaii Professor Haunani-Kay Trask counseled her students, "We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it." Some universities hire former terrorists to teach and indoctrinate students.

The numbers are in for the evening news coverage of the shutdown. During the first 15 nights of October, ABC, CBS and NBC blamed the Republicans 41 times for the shutdown, blamed both sides 17 times, and blamed Obama and the Democrats ... never.

Today we have 50 percent of families who have fulltime employment and 50 percent who don’t. That’s the real divide in America. This divide is sponsored by Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank Banks and IRS offices near you.

Democrats have only one goal to accomplish between now and the 2014 elections: To paint Republicans as the bad guys. In doing so, they'll win the 2014 elections, gain control of the House of Representatives, and as President Reagan once said, the rest of us will be spending "our sunset years telling our children...what it once was like in America when men were free."

Sales of electronic cigarettes have risen dramatically in recent years. Whether you see that development as an opportunity or a threat depends on whether you view the matter rationally or through a fog of prejudice that makes anything resembling a cigarette look sinister, regardless of the risks it actually poses.

Now that the government is back to spending more money than they collect in taxes, are the Republicans doing any better in the polls? Maybe it’s about time for the GOP to focus. . . Brent Littlefield, with Littlefield Consulting, discussed the GOP’s prospects in 2014.

Rebecca was stunned when she opened her mail last week. Her insurance carrier, Highmark BCBS, said her health insurance premium would rise 40 percent this year and her policy would be canceled on Dec. 1, 2014.

"We will never tolerate the foolish acts of the puppet warmongers but wipe out the provokers with merciless firing" North Korea announced in response to the rumored anti-communist propaganda; saying also that they "will deal a telling blow at the (South Korean) army to make it pay a very high price for its foolish provocation!"

The family of a Colorado preacher’s wife is still fuming after the director of the city-owned cemetery refused to engrave her final resting place with the name ‘Jesus’ because it might offend people. The city eventually reversed course under public pressure.

The president's remarkable speech in the Rose Garden yesterday, the high point of which was his claim regarding Obamacare --"It's really good!"-- sets the stage for another MSM fail, because the president made several specific, verifiable claims that ought to be the subject of real, deep and sustained reporting over the next few days.

Remember when Obama compared the Obamacare exchange “glitches” to a glitch in the newest Apple operating software? Well now the Chief Salesman for Obamacare (AKA: President Obama) is trying to compare the websites to booking a vacation online. (And even NBC isn’t buying the pitch.)

At an event Monday to boost the Affordable Care Act after its glitch-rich rollout, President Barack Obama asserted that his signature health care plan is a hit because "prices have come down." That's the administration's big lie: that Washington can mandate universal health care with beefed-up benefits and somehow the plan will save everyone money.

Could there be more convincing proof that President Obama is more concerned about himself than he is about the Americans he is supposed to serve than his Monday morning speech defending the disastrous Obamacare rollout rather than apologizing for it?

The fiasco in Washington over the partial government shutdown, raising the debt ceiling and deepening animosity between Republicans and Democrats (and Republicans and Republicans), has left many asking if there is any way out of this bitter, endless cycle. There may be.

President Obama, Oct. 21, addressing Obamacare's website failures: But I ask: Isn't that how we got to this point of a nation and its government immobilized over a program opposed by -- according to CNN's Oct. 20 poll -- 53 percent of Americans?

More than of 1.5 million Americans live in nursing homes.
That’s not a bad thing in itself, of course. Sometimes elderly folks need skilled care beyond what a family can offer. Alzheimer’s patients often require round the clock supervision that’s impractical for busy families, where children’s needs and professional commitments consume more of the day. And some older people desire the companionship and planned activities that are available in assisted living or transitional facilities.

As the President tries to convince America that everything is going along swimmingly with Obamacare, an increasing number of citizens are expressing doubt. Dr. Ben Carson joined the show to talk about Obamacare, the American Dream, and why the two don’t fit together.

Chutzpah is defined in some dictionaries as “shameless audacity.” It’s not a big enough word to describe what Barack Obama, author of the bestseller “The Audacity of Hope,” said after securing a GOP surrender in the fiscal showdown last week.

Mon, Oct 21, 2013

For liberals, it is a cruel twist of history that Harry Truman's dream of universal health coverage, carried forward by generations of committed Democrats, should fall to the Obama administration for its fulfillment.

It has recently been reported that Richard Griffin, the former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member who has been nominated to general counsel of the federal agency, will receive a vote very soon in the U.S. Senate. The effort to advance Griffin’s nomination is being spearheaded by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid has been one of the top beneficiaries of union money – receiving $321,700 during his re-election campaign in 2010, ranking first in Senate labor money that cycle.

It may be fall but everything's coming up roses in Geneva -- and in every press release about how swimmingly negotiations have been going in that picture-postcard-perfect Swiss spa. (How come diplomatic conferences are never held in Gary, Indiana, or East St. Louis, Illinois?) The subject of last week's meetings in picturesque Geneva: how to work out a deal over Iran's nuclear weapons program. That's right, the vast program that doesn't exist, never existed, and will be halted if only the West would be so kind as to lift its sanctions on trade with that country and theocracy.

To say Barack Obama's second term agenda is in turmoil is an understatement. His lofty goals include passing a budget and farm bill, two things considered routine in the past. The other major goal laid out last week was immigration reform, in the form of amnesty. That is all but dead, too.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, member states of the United Nations declined to re-elect the United States to one of the seats reserved for Western States on the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
They elected, instead, France, Austria and Sweden.

The shutdown/debt limit imbroglio wasn’t a defeat. Defeats leave the losers feeling defeated. But the designated losers, the conservative base of the GOP – which, more accurately, now is the GOP – is more eager and excited than it has been in a long time.

A number of years ago I was between flights on a business trip and was sitting in an airport restaurant having lunch. It was right after the 2008 presidential election and I knew that the election of America’s first black president, a man of the hard left, would make my job bringing a conservative message to black communities much more challenging and difficult.

I rarely call out other writers about flatly not knowing what they are talking about, but I make an exception-- as EVERYONE knows—with Ezra Klein…and now noted yahoo, Yahoo! Finance! Writer! Rick! Newman!

If someone stole your identity and started using your credit for a spending binge, would you fight them? Would you immediately call your credit card company and try to cut off their access? Darn right, and you'd do whatever you could and proudly take the blame for stopping them. That's what conservatives have been doing!

We have regularly seen tribes attacked whenever they dared engage in commercial activity — such as selling cigarettes or operating casinos — that does not conform to the prudish tastes of upper-class America.

Sun, Oct 20, 2013

In part one of this series, I made clear, from the words of Jesus and the New Testament, that ministering to the poor and the needy among us is the work of Christian individuals and the church, not the secular government.

Are Republicans going to agree to tax increases and Democrats to entitlement cuts … in an election year? I’d say the odds are about as good as getting the president to agree to defund his signature legislative “achievement” in exchange for reopening the government and increasing the debt limit.

As Democrats begin maneuvering for the 2016 presidential race, there isn't one who would think of disparaging John F. Kennedy's stature as a Democratic Party hero. Yet it's a pretty safe bet that none would dream of running on Kennedy's approach to government or embrace his political beliefs.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (welfare reform) was a monumental event for the American government. At the signing of the bill on August 23, 1996, then President Clinton stated "Today, we are ending welfare as we know it." His signing of the bill helped to seal his reelection. But what is the reality 17 years later?

Munich, I am told, is a lovely city near the Alps, with a rich history, many architectural and cultural attractions and oceans of great beer. But you wouldn't know any of that from listening to politicians, who never mention it except as an example of disastrous naivete.

Apparently, as evidenced by the ATF and DOJ’s disinterest in conducting investigations into the “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, government run straw purchases – that benefit drug cartels – are not a terrible threat to public safety. But letting law-abiding family members purchase each other guns? Whoa! . . . We can’t permit that kind of dangerous activity to go unchecked!

Tthe Treasury department has still refused to hand over many emails and other communications that, according to my source, show the IRS did almost no analysis of the law before deciding to tax, borrow, and spend $700 billion without congressional authorization.

We are far less vulnerable to OPEC and Middle East disruptions today than we were in 1973, as the geopolitical equation continues to evolve. Every president since Richard Nixon has urged the country to strive for energy independence so that we don’t face another energy crisis like 1973. Now we can make energy independence real.